The Counsellor (OPEN SYOC)
by Legitefanfictiona
Summary: Ever wondered how demigods cope with the war or traumatic experiences? This is about camp-psychiatrist Lawrence Milton and his attempts to help them. SYOC. 11/11/2014: still accepting OCs
1. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme OCs

**So this is my first fanfiction and Syoc and I'm going to try something new.**

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><p>Since Tartarus, nothing's ever been the same again. Well, it's the place of ultimate punishment so clearly it's hard to survive down there as a demigod. We did. We survived. But this place left scars, most of them invisible. Many noticed how we changed and it would have been hard not to hear us waking up from the nightmares sometimes, screaming. But only a few close friends know the true extend of our problems and even less know about us going to the Counsellor.<p>

_- Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon_

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><p>Ever thought about the consequences of war on teenagers? Of their friends dying right in front of their eyes, grinning one second, and then having an arrow sticking through the chest?<p>

This is the story about their counsellor, Lawrence Milton, the 17-year-old son of Apollo.

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><p><strong>Got interested? Please PM me your OC or post himher in the reviews. You'll also find the form on my profile.**

Name:

Nickname (optional):

Age:

Gender:

Sexuality:

Godly parent:

Powers:

Mortal parent:

Problem/ issue/ reason to go to Lawrence (Overview):

APPEARANCE

General:

Your first thought if you met your OC (except "wow, he/she looks like my OC") :

Height:

Weight:

Eye color:

Hair (color, cut, way of wearing it):

Skin tone:

Build:

Clothing (camp, usual, night);

Scars, birth marks, piercing etc.:

Other (e.g. often bad shave, always very neat, only one leg):

PERSONALITY

General:

Fatal flaw:

Likes:

Dislikes:

Friends:

Enemies

Special relationships to somebody (love, hate, disgust):

BACKGROUND

History before camp:

Age at arrival at camp:

How long at camp:

History at camp:

Mortal family:

OTHER

Problem/issue/reason to go to Lawrence (precise):

Other things you might want to add (optional):

Conditions I need to fulfill to choose character (for example: "character mustn't get better in the end") (optional):

Rules

1) Don't put in real problems you might have; I'm not a psychiatrist.

2) I won't break up canon couples, turn nico hetero etc.

3) Give me all you have! Really everything!

._._.a) Except children of the big three or maiden godesses (except Athena), etc.

._._._._I) Exception from exception: Big three children are allowed if they came to camp after the ._._._._._giant war (which was one year ago in this story)

4) Ignore missing 'L's. The key on my keyboard likes to be on strike.

**Note: This will probably be a story with several parallel plot lines.**

**If I have questions about the characters, I'll PM you.**

**Legitefanfictiona**

**11/11/2014:still accepting OCs**


	2. Mary Carson (1)

**Hi**

**I´m so sorry for not updating in nearly three months. I´ll try to do it more regularly.**

**also, if long beginnings bother you, skip paragraphs 2-6.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HoO.**

**WARNING: contains mentions of suicide and rape, as well as descriptions of death.**

Lawrence POV

When the alarm clock rang, I got really pissed. That was something I hated about being a son of Apollo. Since our father was the god of the sun we were supposed get up early and watch the sun rise. That meant being outside at 5am in summer. I don't get, do you? Well, the problem was that even when I was able to sleep longer, the nicest thing you got from me before my morning coffee was a grumbled "Morning". This morning was especially bad.

For the last two weeks I had helped at Camp Jupiter. A few legionnaires had committed suicide one after another and Reyna had called me for help. Although their camp was much bigger and more organized than ours, good demigod psychiatrists were rare. They had three, one of them a trainee, but five full families to look after. And they really had needed of help, everyone could have guessed this even though they tried not to show it. I mean, what kind of father wouldn't cry, if his son had hanged himself? What kind of mother wouldn't break down if she found her daughter in the bathroom, dead from an overdose of sleeping pills? And I think all of us can imagine what happens with a child, who discovers his or her big sibling and role model dead in their room, wrists bloody. And that had only been the beginning. By the time of my arrival there had been one more causality. A few hours before, a dead boy had been found in the Little Tiber. Two senators claimed to have seen him jump from a nearby bridge earlier. While I was there, the number of deaths rose to ten, so my originally one-week-job quickly was prolonged by another seven days.

We couldn't work really efficient because we didn't have a clue on what the cause of the self-killings could have been, neither did the families. They had absolutely nothing in common; amongst the victims there were boys as well as girls, their ages ranged from twelve to sixteen, they had been from different cohorts and legacies of different gods. Finally, a friend of one victim gave us the suicide note, others followed shortly after. Their content could only be described as terrifying and the way they were written was shocking even to the most experienced of us. Everything except the "goodbye" at the end resembled military reports, written in a cold and matter-of-fact style, as if their authors had been robots, bare of emotions. As it turned out, they had been tormented for years by a group of other legionnaires and a centurion. These had punched them, kicked them, even pissed on them, and had made them feel worthless all the time. The most horrible piece of Information was revealed in the letters of a fifteen-year-old girl. She described in every detail, how they raped her a few weeks ago. Apparently she had been caught on her way back from the showers after her morning run. Before she knew what was happening, they had gagged her and carried her away from the barracks and to the field of Mars. Inside a tunnel they tossed her to the ground, ripped off her clothes and started beating her, before... well, unlike her I won't go into detail here. After about one hour, they finally left, but not without threatening to kill her and her little sister if she "ever told one soul, living or dead about this".

When she didn't have her period like usually two weeks later she secretly bought a pregnancy test. The result was devastating to her; obviously, she carried a baby from one of the rapists. According to the suicide note , she decided to kill herself one week after that. In the last sentences she pleaded her friend never to tell anybody about the experience. That was not an unusual thing to do for rape victims. They were often ashamed, scared like hell full of doubt if it maybe had been their fault, too. In this case you also had to consider the danger her sister still was in.

But now we had something to start with. We immediately went to Reyna to talk to her. So she collected a group of the most powerful and trustworthy demigods in the whole legion and together they made a plan. At 2300 the operation took place and about two minutes later all of the rapists were taken into custody. After that, official investigations could finally be launched. The girl underwent autopsy, confirming her story. As they were examined, all the other corpses that hadn't been burned yet showed signs of beatings and partly healed wounds. All of them matched the told stories perfectly.

In the end, the group were found guilty of rape, assault on subordinates, assault on minors and a whole lot of other crimes. The conviction of the criminals provided some kind of closure to the families.

At the end of the second week we had helped them enough for me to leave. Of course, they hadn't fully gotten over the suicides, but my colleagues would be able to deal with them without me from now on.

So, I began my journey home. I used the plane and after that a taxi cab to Camp Half-Blood. When I finally arrived it was already three o'clock in the morning.

-_-_-_-_-LINE-BREAK-_-_-_-_-

I sat at down at the Apollo table groggily with my siblings.

"Coffee," I said to my cup. "As black as the night I need right now."

I took a sip of the hot liquid. Gods, how I missed this. I swear on the river Styx, the dryads made the best coffee in the universe.

After breakfast I informed Chiron that I was back and he told me about the things I had missed out. Apparently one new camper had arrived, but Chiron seemed to have something else on his mind.

"Mary's been getting worse."

"Carson? The girlfriend of my dead brother?"

Chiron nodded, "Her nightmares won't leave her."

Mary Carson was the daughter of Zeus. Her father had claimed her after the war with the giants last year and a few months later she had started dating my brother Jayson Flare. Their relationship had gone south when Jayson died on a quest 6 weeks ago after taking a bullet in the back. Yes, a bullet.

My first activity this morning was sword fighting. Unlike many other Demigods I wasn't very good at fighting. I could take on a small telkhine or an aggressive mortal, as long as they didn't do martial arts, but that was all I was able to do.

Later I could leave for my job. I had a small hut in the woods for the privacy of my patients. We had built it after a girl had been called a psycho because she had been seen entering part of the big house, I had worked in.

First I opened all the windows and cleaned the rooms up.

Suddenly I heard a knock on the door.

"Come in please," I said. "The door is open."

The door opened and Mary Carson stepped into the room.

"Lawrence?", she asked nervously. "Uh... can we ...uh... have a talk?"

She seemed tense and looked as if she hadn't slept properly in days. Her eyes were bloodshot and there were black rings underneath them.

"Of course, why don't we just skip the formalities and start right ahead?", I said, realizing what she wanted and offered her a seat.

"Well, I guess you already know why I am here. It's because of Jayson. I just can't move on with my life. Every time I hear his name, I see it happening again. To him, and to my friends and everybody I care about. At night have nightmares about it." Her voice grew louder. "Why can't I just get over him?"

"Hmm... it probably sounds cliché, but usually it helps to tell the whole story of what happened.

Before you start, you should know that anything said in this room will never leave it."

"Okay, so... you know we went on a quest six weeks ago. The cause were some dracaenae in Chicago. They were causing trouble and it was our job to stop them before they could too much damage to the city and the mortals. We took two pegasi there and arrived about a week later. It was coincidence that we found them, 'cause they weren't in the city centre as you would in a neighborhood. And of course it had to be a rich one where two teenagers who didn't shower in a week and act like they're ready for battle immediately look suspicious. But anyways, we discovered the monsters in a side alley while flying over them. Our pegasi set us down and we attacked. But they fled and took the battle out into the street . That was when everything went terribly wrong." She took a shaky breath before continuing. "Apparently one of the mortals living there called the cops. In retrospect, I can understand him or her. Well, suddenly we noticed the sound of the sirens and someone shouting, 'Freeze!'. That was when we saw the policemen. The had their guns pointed at us. I really don't know what they saw, probably two teenagers attacking some defenseless old ladies. Hecate has a pretty cynical humor, that's for sure. But now we had two enemies, one of whom we neither could, nor wanted to hurt with our weapons. They ordered us to put down our 'guns'. Of course we ignored them. What else could we do? But obviously they really didn't like that. Jayson aimed his bow at a dracaena and they...they..." Her voice had become more and more unsteady in the past few sentences, interrupted by suppressed sobs. But now she broke down completely. Tears started running down her cheeks and she rocked back and forth violently. I sat down next to her and laid an arm around shoulders comfortingly. Usually this kind of gestures were totally off-limits. They violated the line between the therapist and the patient. But things were different in camp. All of us were teenaged demigods and if anything, that created a special bond.

I handed Mary a tissue and she blew her nose. Then she collected herself and continued.

"As I said he was aiming at a dracaena when they shot him in the back. He died in a matter of seconds, they had probably hit his heart. When I saw this, I stopped thinking. My head was filled with insane rage instead. I rose into the sky and felt the clouds gather over me. In that moment I felt... hate. A burning hate that I had never experienced before. When I was ready, I put all my wrath in one big lightning strike. I instantly killed most of the remaining monsters and probably deafened all of the cops with the thunder. But I wasn't finished yet. Fuck, on this day Chicago deserved the name 'Windy City'. I created a full-sized storm. If I think back, I probably had the blessing of Zeus at that time, because I don't think I could ever do that again.

But in the end, all my anger was used up and everything left was grieve. I went back to ...his... corpse. He lay there in a pool of blood. His... his face looked surprised and pained, not peaceful at all.

I IM'ed Chiron and he contacted the gods. Dad had mercy and sent Hermes who transported us home. I held J...Jayson all the way back while he turned cold."

Her voice had become hoarse at the last words. I handed her a glass of water and she drank gratefully.

"Thank you," she said."That was helpful. Talking to someone who understands me, I mean."

"I can't guarantee that this will be enough. Frankly, I don't think so. But tonight you'll probably sleep better. I'd suggest you come back next week if you want to , and after that we'll see if you should meet me regularly. "

"Okay, we'll see. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," I replied, holding the door open for her.

**Thanks for reading this. The coffee scene is dedicated to my brother. How he manages to drink up to half a litre of coffee each morning without getting hyper, that is something to wonder about.**

**Also, thank you for all the nice OCs you submitted, maybe I´ll use them in later chapters.  
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**Special thank you to butterflygirly99, who owns Mary Carson. In case you're wondering why I allowed Mary despite the rules, I did it because she was sent in before the rule was created and didn't violate canon directly. **

**Please keep sending OCs for the next chapters and REVIEW. Constructive criticism is really appreciated and in my opinion needed.**

**_~Legitefanfictiona_**


	3. Lindy Avin (1)

**Hey people! I'm sorry that again I didn't update earlier, but school year's ending soon here in Germany and I had some tests and so on ... but hey, the update is there now and it's nine days faster than last time and summer vacation is closing in, so maybe I'll have more time to write.**

**WARNINGS FOR THE WHOLE STORY: There will or might be themes like graphic violence, death, trauma, suicide, self-harm, rape and similar themes in this story. Maybe not in every chapter and maybe in varying degrees but still. I will not post this warning again in later chapters again. Also, for you future submitters, this is not a guide on what to put in. Secondly, I'm not a psychiatrist, don't use the methods I describe in this story in real life unless you are a psychiatrist and know what you are doing. I don't guarantee accurate description s of the symptoms either.**

**That's it for now. Enjoy reading!**

Lindy's POV

"Hey, Indie, don't fall behind!" Andrew yelled, slightly grinning.

"I'm coming," I replied. I ran up to him and pecked him on the lips. Andrew deepened the kiss, putting more passion into it and making my heart do a drumroll.

When he finally broke free, he said, "I love you."

"Love you too."

"Hey you two lovebirds. You can do that when we're back to camp," another voice threw in. Damien, son of Demeter and thus my half-brother.

"No need to play big brother, Damien," I answered smirking.

"Come on, sis, I´m still older than you, whether you like it or not."

"Lindy´s right, they´ve come together just today, let them be for now," my friend Ava said.

"Thank you, Ava."

"I mean, you can still tease them later, don´t you?" I just sighed.

Before anyone else could say anything, Verity, daughter of Ares and my sparring partner, joined the conversation.

"All of you, shut up, we´re on a mission."

"Yeah, scouting out the area, checking whether it`s a good location for camp´s next field trip and testing if we could build up Hecate´s Magical Border Defense™ here. Very risky," Damien replied sarcastically. She glared at him.

"I´ll just shut up."

Finally, we found a good place. It was an area of about four acres with huge old beeches forming a dome about 30 feet above our heads. The place was lined by some bushes and thick hazels.

Being the daughter of Hecate, Ava began with the tests for the defenses.

"By the way, why don´t they work always?" I asked.

Ava scanned the ground, inspecting it closely, smelling on it and finally chanting something. "Because they are still in development. In some places they work, in some they don´t. But this one seems good. Just a few more tests..."

Suddenly , a hellhound came out of nowhere, lunging for her. Her reflexes saved her life and she dodged a split second before it reached her.

Everyone unsheathed their respective weapons and we were going to attack when Verity shouted,"Ambush! Form a circle!"

When we looked up, we saw what she meant. Nearly two dozens of telkhines and dracaenae swarmed out of the bushes and surrounded us, followed by two laistrygonian giants and another hellhound. They wore full greek battle armor and carried a variety of weapons, from spears and swords to axes or even crossbows.

"Fuck," Andrew cursed under his breath. That summed it up pretty well; none of us had ever encountered such a group of monsters except when fighting in the titan war.

"Finally sssome fresh demigod meat," one dracaena hissed

"Yes, we only had boring mortals for a long time," a telkhine answered.

"Enough talking! Lunch time is nearly over and I want a meal!", one of the laistrygonians shouted and raised his club.

He swung it down towards me and I could just save myself from being flattened with a combat roll. However, by doing so I broke up the formation, as I realized when I turned around and saw my friends struggling to fill the gap I had left in between them. I tried to run towards them, but the laistrygonian blocked my way. He was smiling at me diabolically.

I charged and aimed my sword at his side, but he dodged the jab and beat me with his free hand instead. I stumbled as I felt all the air leave my lungs, but . I turned and did a low blow against his legs. Part of it was deflected by his shin armor but still my blade reached his calf. It wasn´t much, but while he was distracted, I managed to cut his upper arm, before stabbing through his throat, disintegrating him on the spot.

I was in battle mode. A combination of ADHD and adrenaline sharpened my senses to a degree I had never experienced before. And with these sharpened senses I saw what was happening in every terrible detail. While I had been occupied fighting the laistrygonian, our defensive ring had completely broken down and everyone was fighting on their own. Verity was engaging two telkhines at once, Ava was chanting incantations, Andrew was battling one of the hellhounds and Damien was slashing at dracaenae. Apparently some monsters had already been slain, since there was yellow dust on the ground but we were still outnumbered about three to one.

I charged into battle again, attacking a dracaena with my sword. My blow was directed at her head, but she easily blocked it using her shield and counterattacked with a strike to my left thigh. I jumped backwards to avoid the slash, but by doing this I missed my chance to attack myself, giving her the opportunity to engage me with an aggressive fighting style. She was forcing me backwards quickly, neither giving me a chance to attack nor to think of a good strategy. I was trying frantically not to be decapitated when I noticed that she moved her arm too far to the right after slashing from the left. It was just a small flaw but it was my only chance to win this fight. So when she next stroke from the left, instead of parrying or stepping back I ducked and did a blow at her twin tails, right above the spot where a human's knees would have been. Unfortunately I forgot about her shield. She managed to first block my sword and then, in the same motion, hit my nose hard, breaking it audibly. I cried out in pain and stumbled backwards. The dracaena smirked and took advantage of me holding my nose to attack and cut my stomach deeply.

I could only gasp. Strangely, and although my vision blurred, I didn't feel any pain.

_The shock._ I realized. Thinking felt like trying to run through bubble gum.

"The firsssst cut , tesssting the meat.", she hissed.

_You have about three seconds left. Focus! Act now!_

If I was going to die I would have a last stand.

"YYYAAAAAA!"

I put together all the power I had left and with a defiant battle cry I jumped towards her and rammed my sword right through her chest.

I fell to my knees. The pain, until now suppressed, came washing over me.

Never before I had experienced such agony. Not when I fell from the climbing wall and got burns from nearly touching the lava, not when a Hermes-camper accidentally hit my calf during archery practice, not even when I broke my arm as a child.

_Bottle... belt... nectar._

I reached for my emergency supply of the godly drink, opened the bottle and drowned its content in one. It burned like Hades.

_Did I drink too much? Will I burn up?_ I had drowned the whole bottle so it was indeed possible.

But the burning sensation subsided, along with the pain from the wounds.

I got up and gripped my sword. I was back for battle again, ready to kick some...

It wasn't until then when I noticed how bad the situation was. Everyone was struggling and losing ground fast. Damien had the most trouble by far. The monsters had singled him out and surrounded him, attacking him eagerly. It was obvious that he was losing. His shirt had been ripped off and he was bleeding from several cuts all over his body. Each strike left him weaker, his parries got slower after every blow. Even at full strength he wouldn't have a chance to attack. Everyone tried to get closer to him but no one was quick enough. The second laistrygonian giant raised his club ready to strike. I jumped forward although I knew it was too late. The club fell.

In font of all our eyes Damien's head cracked open sending dark red blood flying everywhere. He collapsed. My brother was dead. Killed by a stupid laistrygonian for lunch. One second alive and the next gone forever. Never again would I hear his laugh when someone made a joke, never again argue with him whether roses or just plain daisy flowers were more beautiful.

Ava screamed, ripping me out of my thoughts,"NOOO!"

The usually so gentle and delicate girl had been replaced with a terrifying young woman. Her eyes, dark brown orbs always full of pure kindness, were now burning with hate. She was a daughter of Hecate, the titan of magic, the mist and crossroads. These monsters obviously had taken the wrong choice and were now facing the wrath of a child of one of the most powerful gods and titans.

There had been rumors at camp that Ava had a crush on Damien, but he certainly didn't feel that way and we had always just assumed they were very close friends. Now it seemed like the rumors were at least partly true.

She shouted something and flames shot out of thin air, setting the giant on fire. He screamed horribly in pain and thrashed around wildly in a desperate attempt to extinguish the flames.

But weren't they usually immune to flames? Either this one wasn't or it wasn't normal fire.

Ava yelled, "Yes! Burn! Burn and die!"

The screams got quieter and when the giant turned to dust, the flames died down. The monsters took a step away from Ava who was glaring at them.

"Incantare aer hostum deest!" She yelled and instantly swayed. But the effect on the monsters was terrible. They seemed to suffocate and gasped for air. Some collapsed and the remaining hellhound vanquished. Obviously they needed a lot of air and weren't able to hold their breath very long. What Ava had achieved was terrible and amazing at the same time. But the spell took its toll. While another two dracaenae dissolved, she fell to her knees sweating. Her eyes widened and she started trembling and writhing. She gasped for air and moaned.

"What's happening to her?" Andrew shouted.

Verity answered, "The spell is taking too much energy. It's consuming her."

As if to prove Verity's words, Ava gagged one last time before finally collapsing, no breathing coming from her lips anymore. Ava Sandon, daughter of Hecate, had died.

We were shocked. Our brains failed to proceed the information they received. Two dead friends in such a short span of time? No. Impossible.

Even if we were to survive our gang could never be anything similar to what it had been before. A strong group of friends might take one dead member, but two? That was definitely too much. Ava had been the glue that kept us together, the lifeline to pull us up when we were low. She was the energy to keep us going when nothing worked out fine.

In our shock, we didn't notice the monsters rising from the ground. We only did when they attacked and Verity shouted, "Stand together!"

We moved, getting ready for defending ourselves and trying to shift our focus from our friends' corpses lying on the black soil to the monsters that were now rushing towards us. Eventually the three of us stood together, our backs facing each others'.

"If we are going to die today and end up as monster lunch," Verity spoke."Let's make them work for their meal."

"I agree," I said.

Andrew threw in, "One objection, we're not gonna die today."

There was no more time too talk as the monsters were in attack range now and the battle started once again. Everyone knew that one way or another, this would be the final part of the fight.

I jabbed at a telkhine. He caught my blade with the handguard of his kopis sword and then raised it for a strike. If he did the blow, I wouldn't stand a chance. Its forward-curved blade supplied the kopis with the power of a battle axe and combined with the telkhine's strength it wouldn't make a difference if I tried to block the sword or not; it would split my skull either way. But maybe I could catch his wrist between my blade and crossguard instead.

He struck and I moved forward and held my sword up. Thankfully, my plan worked and I blocked the blow at his armored wrist. The impact sent vibrations down my arm, but I didn't move an inch. My opponent probably realized that he couldn't overcome me by strength alone in this position and backed away a step. My shoulder ached but I forced my arm to move and slice his thigh with my sword. My opponent bellowed, more in surprise than in pain but I used this chance to run my blade through his chest. He exploded, covering me in dirty golden slime.

I wiped my face and spotted another one of those dog-hybrids sneaking away from the battle. That was weird; telkhines usually went for fights all too eagerly.

It was only when I saw where he was going that I realized what he was up to. Obviously he decided to let the others fight us and enjoy a meal in the meantime. He was stepping towards Ava's dead body. The

"No," I breathed. I wanted to charge at him but two dracaenae blocked my path. The monster crouched down next to my friend's corpse. He lowered his maw...

"No!" I screamed this time.

Verity seemed to hear me. She looked up from her fight just as the sea demon bit down on Ava's shoulder. Verity cried out in rage, cutting down her current opponent and jumped towards the telkhine.

She hacked off his arm before he could even react and started slashing at him wildly until he caught her blade, bending it under his weight. Adapting to the situation quickly, she dropped her sword and kicked the kneeling monster with her combat boots before grabbing his battered battle axe. She continued hacking at him wildly, until he turned to dust and the axe cracked.

The monsters all took a step back from her and the mad look in her eyes. She threw aside her broken axe, looking for another weapon.

Her gaze finally fell on my dead rival's kopis. She lunged for it and lifted it off the ground. What happened simply was a massacre. Verity fought like a berserker, cleaving through the crowd and hacking off limbs and heads, not feeling any pain or fatigue. She laughed out maniacally and I wondered if her sanity had finally snapped.

But no matter how deep her battle trance was, she did not receive her father's blessing and did not become invulnerable. Her fighting style was entirely offensive, controlled by fury alone. It relied on her opponents going into defense in order to protect themselves instead of attacking. But if anyone found a chance to counterattack or fought with an offensive style as well, it would go from very effective to very dangerous very fast.

Luckily for Verity, the monsters panicked and just tried to stay alive as she cut them down effortlessly. She stabbed one dracaena, pulled her sword out and, in one fluent motion, turned around and beheaded another one. Before her enemy had even fully dissolved, she was already engaging a the last telkhine still standing. he managed to block one strike, then another one, but the next blow cut off his right leg and as he fell down, Verity split his head. To everyone else, their fights were forgotten. We just stared at her in awe and terror. The latter mostly by the monsters, but Andrew and I were pretty scared too. The glint of madness in her gaze made us fear that after she had finished off the monsters, her murderous frenzy would continue and she'd turn on us.

But it didn't come that far. One of the snake-women lifted her crossbow and took aim at my raging friend, who didn't notice her. The monster pulled the trigger and her arrow shot into Verity's side. She cried in pain, shouting out curse words in three different languages. But she didn't fall. In spite of her wound, Verity continued attacking her current opponent.

Suddenly I heard a sound behind me, a growl in a voice I knew very well. I turned around to see Andrew attacking the dracaena, who was frantically reloading her crossbow. He cut her weapon in half, making the monster shriek, then sliced across her stomach, turning her to dust.

But it was too late. The hit had weakened Verity enough to keep her from mowing down enemies easily. Her killing spree started to wear off and the dracaenae slowly gained the upper hand. They started to attack us again, too.

They used the same tactic on her as on Damien, first isolating and surrounding, then overpowering the victim by sheer number.

The difference was that Verity was a lot more skilled as a fighter than my brother. But in the end it was no use to her; she was slowly hacked to pieces. She lost the fingers of her left hand first, then they disabled her leg by cutting through her thigh, before finally decapitating her, ending her pain. But despite her horrible injuries, she stood her ground until the final blow.

It took us a few seconds to realize that Verity's screams had ended. But when we noticed, tears started running down our cheeks. It was just too much for us. We had been in shock before, but now, when we saw it was down to the two of us again, just like when we were young and new at camp, just after we arrived there together, we couldn't help crying.

We were fighting back to back, trying desperately to stay alive with tears blurring our visions. The monsters outnumbered us by far, and the two of us knew our death was more than likely. But on the other hand, being a demigod was all about beating the odds. We didn't think about our movements anymore; blocking, hacking and stabbing, it all just blended together. At least the fight carried us away a little bit, distracting us from our dead companions.

I was pulled back to earth very quickly when my instincts made me turn around just in time to see Andrew being thrown to the ground by his opponent. Then a fist hit the side of my head and sent me tumbling away from him. I regained my balance and saw that there were only two monsters left, one of whom blocked my way while the other one stood over Andrew, sword raised.

There must have been enough adrenaline rushing through my veins for an elephant to have a heart attack when I dashed forward, disintegrating my rival while lifting my sword to stab the other dracaena.

Time slowed down. The last monster moved her blade down towards Andrew's neck.

My muscles tensed, preparing to jump.

The weapon accelerated downwards.

I lunged, but it was too late. The dracaena's sword made contact-

"WAKE UP!"

.

I shot up, bathed in cold sweat. Where was I? Someone grabbed my shoulders. Who was that blurred form in front of me? A monster?

"It's me, Miranda Gardiner! You're at Camp Half-Blood in your bed at Demeter cabin! It was only a dream!"

My vision cleared. In fact half of the cabin was crowded in front of my bunk, while the rest were sitting in their beds, staring at me.

My gaze focused on Miranda again, who was still talking to me, "What happened in the dream? It was about... that day, wasn't it?"

I croaked, "Yes." My throat was sore. Apparently I had screamed in my sleep. "Yes, I was back on that clearing. I relived the whole afternoon. But this time ... it was different ... so real, as if it was actually that time."

I glanced at my alarm clock. 3:30 am. There was no way I would be going back to sleep now. I stood up and threw on some sweatpants and a light jacket.

"Where are you going?", Katie asked.

"Out. Maybe the woods. Maybe the lake. I don't know."

"But it's still curfew."

I didn't respond and opened the door instead, walking out of the cabin. I breathed in the cool air.

_Maybe you could have prevented it. If you hadn't left the defensive circle in first place, you might have had a chance to fight them off. Maybe you should have died along them._

_Maybe I should have. _I thought. _Maybe_.

**Thanks for reading this. Special thanks go to raeganb123 and everybody else who submitted. Maybe your OCs will be used later. I'm also still accepting so keep sending them in.**

**Yes, most of the chapter was a dream/flashback. And for those of you who don't understand Latin or didn't understand it, "aer hostum deest" means "the enemies' air is missing.",at least if I'm not wrong.**

**I didn't include Lawrence in this chapter, since I decided to write a little bit about your characters too. **

**Wow, more than 3,400 words in one chapter, I thinks that's the longest thing I've ever written. In case you're ever in doubt, I hereby promise that I will not abandon this story without posting one last chapter in which I'll tell you.**

**I just realized it's 2:45 in the morning, my mother had birthday today/yesterday with a lot of visitors and I didn't sleep that much last night or last week.**

**Also, no, I don't only write about girls who lost their boyfriends, it's really just coincidence.**

**Please review, constructive criticism is as always appreciated. **

**~Legitefanfictiona**


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